


The General Regrets

by PerpetuaLilium



Category: And Then There Were None - Christie
Genre: Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Canon Compliant, Canon-typical self-pity, Character Study, Depression, Gen, Guilt, Original Flavor, Past Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29681655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerpetuaLilium/pseuds/PerpetuaLilium
Summary: Character study of General Macarthur in the moments before his death.
Kudos: 1





	The General Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is canon-compliant and as close as I could get to original flavor for the Agatha Christie novel "And Then There Were None". I haven't seen any adaptations of the novel, including the well-regarded 2015 BBC miniseries, and so this is going purely by the book's presentation of the characters.

_I should have thought better. Should have tried to mend things. If things weren't to be mended, I should have taken my bow._ Some _body ought to have been happy._

Looking out over the sunlit summer sea, General Macarthur thought this through again and again. He should have done something--something else! Anything else, almost! And if he had...

_She might yet have died nonetheless, in the 'flu, or in the after years. She might have died, and he might have died. Just as I might die, just as I will die._

Death would have come for all of them eventually, but perhaps, if he had acted with love and not anger...or even if he had acted with dignity but not love...they might have been a little happier, before that end.

_And perhaps, even if Leslie had kept carrying on with Arthur...perhaps even then they could have found something in each other, some way to honesty, some way to grace..._

There had been cases like that before, many of them, of the unfaithful lovers realizing, _seriatim_ or together, what they really ought to do, what they really ought to have been doing. He thought of the picture by Hunt, "The Awakening Conscience." He had sent Richmond to his last end without allowing that, without allowing him that possibility.

_I could have damned him as well as killing him! Oh, far worse than David, for Uriah was the husband, Uriah had not sinned. Oh, well, it's no matter now...I am at my own end here...Soldier Island, the end of all journeys, the beginning of all ends. Perhaps some day in that sweet forever I'll know myself, truly, and know my ends, my purposes, after all. Perhaps Leslie and Arthur might know them too. Perhaps we might forgive one another for all that the three of us have done.  
_

It was a beautiful August morning. When Mr. Justice Wargrave killed him from behind, he didn't feel the blow. Perhaps Richmond had not felt it either.


End file.
